


(Wo)man

by MagitekUnit05953234



Series: Like Real People Do [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Gender Identity, Mentioned Ignis Scientia, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, rated for impromptu sex ed class, world of ruin era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:41:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22256605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagitekUnit05953234/pseuds/MagitekUnit05953234
Summary: Gladio is awakened in the dead of night —or at least, the dead of night according to his haphazard sleep schedule if not the lack of sunlight outside— by two sharp raps on his door. He’s almost certain he knows who it is already just from the nature of the knocking, but he lets himself hope that maybe he’s wrong.He’s not wrong.
Relationships: Gladiolus Amicitia & Original Character(s)
Series: Like Real People Do [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1189523
Comments: 10
Kudos: 55





	(Wo)man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iuniore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iuniore/gifts).



> Gladio is trying his best here, guys.

Gladio is awakened in the dead of night —or at least, the dead of night according to his haphazard sleep schedule if not the lack of sunlight outside— by two sharp raps on his door. He’s almost certain he knows who it is already just from the nature of the knocking, but he lets himself hope that maybe he’s wrong. 

He’s not wrong. 

“Hello,” Maris, the creepy-ass clone kid with an eternally lost look in his eyes and twitchy hands, stands in the hallways of the derelict apartment Gladio’s renting with Ignis. “May I come in?”

Polite. He certainly didn’t get that from Prompto— not with the way Prompto’s acting these days. 

Gladio doesn’t particularly wanna let the kid in, but he knows just how overwhelmed Maris get in the more crowded parts of Lestallum. Not to mention the violence against Niffs in this area that’s only been getting worse and worse with time. If nothing else, Maris is very visibly a native of Niflheim at first glance, and that makes him a hell of a target. 

“Sure. Why not,” Gladio steps out of the way and beckons Maris inside with a wave of the hand. “Just be quiet. Iggy’s actually asleep for once.”

Maris, who had been just about to speak by the looks of it, snaps his mouth shut with an audible click. He slinks into the apartment and removes his shoes, lining them up neatly with Ignis and Gladio's by the door. 

Maris’s socks are fuzzy and striped in alternating shades of blue. Gladio is reminded, in a weird way, of Iris. When Insomnia still lived and breathed, she wore socks like that around the house a lot. She hasn’t done that in a long time.

Gladio busies himself with making a pot of coffee. He’s vaguely aware of Maris crossing the apartment to sit on the couch, silent if not for the creaking floorboards beneath his feet. 

“You want some?” Gladio gestures with the newly-filled carafe, twisting at the hip to look behind himself.

Maris, crammed in the corner of the little two-seater couch as if there were five invisible people taking up the rest of the space, glances up with wide eyes. After a moment, he shakes his head.

Gladio pours himself a mug and sips from it. It isn’t good coffee, but it never  _ is _ good coffee. “What’re you over on this side of town so late at night for?”

Maris makes one of his usual incomprehensible expressions. For all that he resembles Prompto, his mannerisms are nowhere near.

Gladio doesn’t get a reply, and it takes him longer than it should to realize why. “Hey, you can talk, y’know. I didn’t mean you couldn’t. Just didn’t want you to be loud.”

Maris runs his hand over his hair, all the meager half inch —probably less, actually— of it. His sleeve falls down as he does, and Gladio catches a glimpse of the tattoo on Maris’s wrist. Maris doesn’t seem to have an issue with it, but Gladio feels weird seeing it. He knows how torn up Prompto is about his own tattoo, understandably so even if Gladio doesn’t have much of an opinion on it, and Maris’s is practically identical. 

“Prompto is gone,” Maris says.

To Gladio’s knowledge, Prompto spends a lot of time out on solo hunts now. It’s nowhere near safe for Prompto and is frankly irresponsible seeing as how Maris is hardly the type of person you should leave home alone for more than a day. He’s like a dog that way. 

Well, maybe comparing the poor kid to an animal isn’t the best thing to do considering his life so far. Gladio decides not to think too hard on it for his own sanity’s sake.

“That sucks,” Gladio adds as much cream and sugar that it takes to make his coffee taste like its fit for human consumption —to think that he used to take the good stuff black— and takes his coffee to sit beside Maris. “You got everything you need?”

Maris jerks his head up and back down in a motion so fast Gladio would have missed it if he blinked. A nod of sorts. “I have my designated rations card. That is all I require when Prompto is away.”

Is it? Sounds like it would be lonely, waiting all alone in that apartment for your brother slash caretaker to return with no way of knowing when —or  _ if _ , Gladio’s traitorous mind interjects— he will come back.

Well. That’s probably why Maris seeked company out, isn’t it? Gladio certainly can’t blame him for that.

“Did you come here looking for something in particular?” 

Maris makes brief eye contact before his gaze drops again, almost palpable as Maris seems to scrutinize the tattoos exposed by the tee shirt he pulled on so he wouldn’t be answering the door half naked. While Gladio is no stranger to being shirtless in public, being so tends to have unfortunate implications when observed at night in one’s own home by a stranger. It wasn’t as if Gladio could have known who was on his stoop —metaphorically speaking, as the apartment’s front door leads out to a second floor hallway and not the street— until he had already exposed himself to the possibility of outside scrutiny.

“I wanted to ask—” Maris starts, then falls silent. This is nothing new. Maris is a habitually undemanding creature. Trying to get him to speak his mind, express an opinion, or request something he needs is a slow affair that requires just the right phrases and motions to succeed. Gladio isn’t very good at it, but he’s loathe to wake Ignis after the last few insomnia-strewn weeks. Ignis has voiced a suspicion that his insomnia may now be supplemented by something called  _ Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder _ . Supposedly it is common in those who are blind. Gladio doesn’t know as much as he ought to about it yet. He’s been busy.

The silence continues. 

“Prompto isn’t here and I— I wanted— I was wondering what it means to be a man,” Maris asks.

Gladio blinks. “You mean, what a man is?”

“A man is a male human,” Maris defines the term quickly and easily. “Once male humans reach adulthood, they are called men.”

“Right,” Gladio places his mug down on the coffee table that sits in front of the couch. “Were you just looking for confirmation that that was right, or…?”

“I wanted—” Maris’s mouth twists as he tries to find the words. “I know what a man is. I wanted to know what it is like to be one.”

“Uh,” Gladio now takes his turn to pause awkwardly in the middle of speaking. Count on this guy to ask the easy questions. “Well, you are one. That’s what it is like.”

Maris takes a while to respond, fiddling with his fingernails. “Am I really a man?”

Ah. This again. Both Ignis and Prompto —back when Prompto deigned to speak to anyone that wasn’t the brother he had accidentally acquired, a bartender, or the Glaive handing out hunts on any particular day— had warned Gladio to tread carefully with anything that would seem like he was insisting Maris was human. The topic was touchy as all hell, but apparently he would usually settle for the term  _ person _ as a go-around for either  _ MT _ or  _ human _ seeing as no one who liked him would call him the former and he wouldn’t accept the latter.

“Men can be people, not just humans.”

“I understand that. I understand gender and what it applies to. What I want to know is how to tell I am a man… if that’s… if it is… acceptable to ask.”

For fuck’s sake.

_ Of course _ Prompto has to be gone for the one time Maris decides its time for spontaneous 2 AM sex ed class. 

“Well,” Gladio sighs, leaning back in his seat to stare at the ceiling for a moment. He could always just refuse to say anything and leave it for Prompto when he gets back, but it feels kind of unfair to Maris to do that. As much as he can be awkward or a little creepy or just plain inconvenient, Gladio can’t help but feel for the kid. “Generally, men and women are classified by their… body type. Women usually don’t have… I mean, men tend to have…”

Maris stares at Gladio when he looks over. Rapt. The only movement is his hands, fidgeting in his lap.

Godsdamnit.

“Men typically have a dick,” Gladio manages, not incredibly encouraged by the lack of response he receives in return. “Women usually don’t. That’s the primary difference between men and women, so. If you have one, then… you’re a man.”

Maris blinks.

“You… do have one, right?” Gladio asks before he can think better of it. He really doesn’t know just how  _ complete  _ —for lack of a better term— the clones are. Though if Maris didn’t have something, surely Prompto wouldn’t either since they’re supposed to be entirely identical, and Gladio is almost certain—

Quick. Think about something else.

Gladio usually doesn’t have to struggle with his wording so much, but the combination of the matter at hand and the person he’s speaking to is not the best.

“Yes,” Maris continues to fidget, procedurally cracking each finger on his left hand using his right. “You said— you said ‘usually’ and ‘typically.’ I knew about genitalia and the way they can classify people before now, but you say it as if… they are not the only things that define who is a man or woman.”

Shit. Shit shit shit. Ignis is definitely the better person to be talking about this now, considering his firsthand experience with this sort of thing. But no, he is asleep and Gladio is here.

Fuck him running.

“Well, they’re not,” Gladio struggles with whether or not to use Ignis as an example here. While Ignis is not one to hide the fact that he is transgender, he is also rarely directly forthcoming with it.

Better not.

“Gender is  _ not  _ designated by genitalia?”

Not a hint of embarrassment in the kid at all. Gladio could only be so lucky.  
  
“Not really,” Gladio rubs the back of his neck, wondering how he got here. “People… tend to use it as a first indicator of someone’s gender, but it isn’t foolproof. Some women can...uh... have dicks and men… not. Some people don’t have a gender either so that indicator doesn’t work at all with them.”

“Oh,” Maris nods. He stands and bows a little, a mannerism with origins that Gladio couldn’t even begin to guess. “Thank you.”

He turns toward the door.

“Hold on,” Gladio stands and moves to follow. Maris stops dead, halfway on his way out. “Are you leaving right now? It’s late.”

He’ll probably get jumped at this hour for gods’ sake. This isn’t the best place for people like Maris to be period.

“I— yes. I was going to go back to Prompto’s apartment,” Maris rocks a little on his feet. “You answered my question.”

“Just stay here,” Gladio motions with his head toward the couch. “I can make up the couch for you.”

Maris agrees easily and helps Gladio stretch a flat sheet over the vaguely comfortable three-seater even after insisting that nothing more was “required” than a designated place to sleep.

Man, that kid is so weird.

They both observe their work once the couch is made up. Sheets pulled tight over the cushions, thick blanket folded over on one side ready for someone to burrow under it, pillow fluffed against one armrest.

“I think I may be a woman,” Maris says.

Oh.

Oh shit.

Gladio needs to go wake up Ignis for this one.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/compromisedunit)! Also, consider joining my [discord server](https://discord.gg/dSGgxMF)!


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